Brown grease 'explosion' & smoke behind front driver's wheel well? AWD problem?
 

Scary stuff..... driving home yesterday after getting swift springs installed, and I notice a strange smell. When I get home, there's smoke coming from under the front of the car. It looks like something with brown grease exploded behind the front driver's side wheel well-- bottom part of engine. Maybe transfer case grease or cv axle exploding? I'm sure the smoke and smell are from the grease getting on the exhaust.

The dealership is 20 minutes away and a bit worried to drive it that far. What do yall think it could be?

I think whoever installed your springs f'd something up bad. :-\

Have them send a tow truck out. On their dime.

Rather than an "explosion", I'd suspect they just torn the flex boot on the axle shaft which allowed the lube to sling out and splatter all around as you drove it. The lube that made it to the exhaust undoubtedly is what smoked. See if you can locate the leak in the boot and assess how much is left inside. If it looks like there's still a bit in there and around the CV joint, you should be able to drive it slowly to the shop.

That's a dangerous situation your axle can pop out at the next turn and have U driving in a direction you don't want to go in. Have it towed back to who installed the springs unless u did it yourself. I would suggest replacing the whole axle instead of just refilling the boot.

:NOOO: Whaaaat? :confused2:

Could you explain your thinking on that please?

The axle does help keep the wheel on alignment and if it breaks it can cause the wheel to do whatever it wants in terms of not being able to steer correctly. This is what happened when my axle broke on my last car and I had to have it towed immediately. If the boot is torn there's no way to tell what type of damage may occurred to the axle and it should be replaced completely.

^not true. The axle has nothing to do with alignment. Even so, I wouldn't drive it. Have it towed to a local shop and get it looked at. Yelp is a good place to find a decent shop. I also agree that you need to speak to the person who installed your springs.

1) I'll have to disagree with that. (That's the suspension's job)

2) Sure, I guess if it completely snaps and becomes wedged against the suspension somehow, but you're talking about a wholesale catastrophic failure at that point. Simply tearing boot and making a mess is a far cry from snapping axles. If he drove a 1000 miles at freeway speeds and got it hot as hell with no lube and seized it, then sure, maybe he'd see that kind of failure, but not after just a ride home from the suspension shop and a slow trip back to whoever is fixing it.

my apologizes I just thought about it and I had to replace a control arm as well as my axle last time. I completely forgot about that, probably because I was working on the snow in 5 degree weather when it happened lol.

This seems to be what happened. Thank you, VQsmile! There was a ton of grease in there that had been slung around, so it looked like an explosion and freaked me out at first haha.

The shop that installed the springs explained that being lowered, it's putting more stress on the CV axle (and boot). Turns out a G35x and several Audi guys have had similar issues when dropped. The shop may indeed have done something to the boot during the installation, but no proof of that. They did offer to install a new boot kit with free labor. The dealership will check it on Monday and hopefully fix under warranty. If not, I'll buy the boot kit and have the other shop install it.

The front wheels look way out of camber and angled. Maybe this is just the visual effect due to being closer to the car body, but it looks like something is wrong. I will get an alignment in a week or two once the springs have settled.

Thanks for all yall's replies.

Taking it to the dealership may not be the best idea. First, having non-OEM springs voids your warranty on suspension components and it's unlikely the CV boot failure will be covered in any case. The dealership will document this in your G's record and could lead to non-coverage of other suspension or drive axle issues in the future.

^^
I tend to agree with this. I can't see a dealer not calling the failure a result of the drop. :icon43:

Also, txg37x did you ever inspect they boot yourself? If it's torn, they likely did it by pinching or scuffing it somehow (and aren't telling you). Blaming it on the new position alone seems rather unlikely, but if there is truly no tear, then maybe they have a point. Definitely do some checking on the quality of whatever boot kit they're proposing to use. Lots of mixed results on some of those kits.

You will also want to budget for a front and rear camber kit. Best to get them before your final alignment.